1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the automatic detection and analysis of tire treads, and more specifically to automatic detection and analysis using a pressure mapping system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Tire performance research and design has for many years involved the analysis of the tire tread with respect to the contact surface that the tire is resting upon. This typically involves analyzing contact pressures and tread deformations for both static and rolling tires. Before pressure mapping products were available, this analysis was restricted to the examination of tread deformation and tread physical parameters using manual techniques such as applying ink to the tread and rolling the tire across construction paper to record the tread footprint. Others have attempted to improve the crude nature of these approaches.
For example, published application US2010/0274447 describes the use of transducer matrix film for measuring tire tread pressures. The measurements may be used for tire testing and evaluation purposes or as part of a safety or performance feedback system. However, the system requires considerable manual effort to extract the required data.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,037,744 describes a method of analyzing tire treads using CCD camera technology. A tire tread is applied to a transparent faceplate and cameras capture images for further processing and analysis. However, this system is limited in that it does not capture pressure data and only analyzes one tread at a time.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,347,588 describes another optical imaging system that analyzes a tire footprint on a transparent planar surface. Image processing of the captured images is used to identify various tread parameters. However, this system has only coarse capabilities and it is not capable of measuring pressure.
Thus, there is a need for approaches that can perform surface pressure measurements in addition to automatically measuring various physical parameters for tire treads.